


A Manual for Breakups

by Vamillepudding



Series: Not A Meet-Cute [5]
Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Happy Ending, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, seriously I swear this has a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 17:34:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14898966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vamillepudding/pseuds/Vamillepudding
Summary: The thing that no one tells you about breakups is that it never fucking ends.***Or: Charles and Erik have broken up after Erik proposed. Charles is not coping well.(Can be read as a Stand-Alone.)





	A Manual for Breakups

**Author's Note:**

> It was incredibly interesting to see people's reponses to my last fic - who sided with Charles, and who sided with Erik.  
> Obviously, I couldn't just leave you guys hanging like that. Here is the follow-up fic that I promised.

The thing that no one tells you about breakups is that it never fucking ends.

It isn’t just done with the simple act of saying (or texting, depending on how much of a dick you are) the word.

No, what follows is everything else. Sometimes weeks, months, or even years down the line you’ll find one of your partner’s dumb plaid shirts that you always hated, or go through a photo album and find a snapshot of the two of you on that road trip you took. Reminders are everywhere and constant.

Another thing no one tells you about breakups is how messy the process is.

Imagine, for the sake of the argument, that you and your partner share a flat. You then break up, and the price question is: Who gets to keep it?

Followed by minor questions such as: Can you afford to keep the flat alone? Who lives in the flat while you’re both looking for new places? What about the furniture – the couch belongs to you, but the bed you bought together. And the towels, what about those? And the wooden spoons – your partner bought these, but you’re the better cook, and your partner never used them once.

***  
  
Charles was currently wrestling with all of these problems, and he was wrestling them alone, because on the evening of the breakup, Erik had decided to use up all of his saved-up holidays, effective immediate and the company be damned, and had flown to Bali.

This left Charles in charge of everything, and even though he almost definitely deserved the misery it brought, he still felt that Erik was being unfair to leave this to him.

At the same time, however, he was immeasurably grateful to his now-former boyfriend for leaving not just the country, but the continent. He wasn’t entirely sure he’d be able to stand the sight of Erik right now.

Erik hadn’t technically given him an ultimatum, but it had definitely felt like one when he proposed to Charles. Marriage proposals were funny like that. There was only really one acceptable answer. No didn’t just mean No, it meant breaking up.

So Charles and Erik had broken up. Or rather: Charles broke up with Erik, before Erik could break up with him. 

It was fine. 

Charles was fine.

So was Erik, apparently, if his Twitter-updates were anything to go by – and that was another thing, since when did he use his Twitter account? Charles was almost 90 per cent sure that Erik’s newly attained social media presence was purely out of spite, like the time Erik had read all 7 Harry Potter books in 2 weeks just so he could tell Charles afterwards how garbage they were. 

Charles missed him.

He shouldn’t. He had no right to. But he did, and it was terrible.

Charles, according to his sister Raven, was not much of a relationship person, and she had been right. He wasn’t. So when he terminated his current relationship, he hadn’t really expected it to hit him so hard.

That, in retrospect, had been a false assumption.

It wasn’t true love. True love was a myth, and if there were two people who absolutely did not fit into this category, they were Erik Lehnsherr and Charles Francis Xavier. 

It wasn’t true love.

Maybe it was just the loneliness that hit when you were watching  _Keeping Up with the Kardashians_  alone and all your jokes fell flat because there was no one to laugh at them.

Maybe it was standing in the grocery store and absent-mindedly putting enough food for two people in the trolley, then returning half of it back to the shelves.

Maybe it was checking Twitter and seeing that Erik had uploaded a picture of himself on the beach, because  _what the fuck_?

The picture showed Erik in nothing but sunglasses and shorts, a cocktail in hand. This was so ridiculously out of character that Charles had to check Emma’s blog immediately. Indeed, her last post had been written six days ago, titled ‘just arrived in Bali’. Right. This explained – a lot, actually.

Weirdly enough, it helped to picture Emma writing all those tweets from her best friend’s phone in his name, rather than said best friend doing it himself. It meant that Erik might be just as miserable as Charles. 

Not that Charles wanted Erik to be miserable. 

But maybe just a  _little_  miserable, instead of sipping a Piña Colada on the beach.

Charles’ phone rang. He glanced at the screen, and hit  _Decline_. He was seldom in the mood to talk to Raven, but for the past week, his need to be anywhere but in her presence and hear anything but her voice had increased a little more with every call.

He had declined them all.

It would have been unfair to blame Raven for the breakup, so Charles didn’t waste his time doing so. This didn’t mean he couldn’t ignore her for a bit. Like for the last seven days. Or like the rest of his life, possibly.

Alright, enough with the self-pitying. Erik was enjoying his single life? Fine. Charles would just have to do his damnedest to make sure that everything would be taken care of by the time his ex-boyfriend got back to New York. He owed this to him.

He could do this.

  
***  
  
“I can’t do this,” he told Hank that night. Hank blinked once, twice, then said: 

“I don’t mean to be rude, but what exactly are you doing here?” He gestured to indicate their surroundings, meaning his flat. That’s when Charles realised something.

 

 *****  
Thing No. 3 no one tells you about breakups** :

It falls to you to inform every single person you know about what happened. Changing your social media relationship status is an option. A less public approach would be telling people in person. An even less public approach than that would be to just not tell anyone until the topic comes up.

***

  
At no point had he told Hank any of this. The two of them had been friends for a number of years, but it would never be Charles’ first instinct to inform his former student about anything personal in his life. They talked about their work, and articles they had read, and movies they had or hadn’t yet watched, but rarely did stuff like relationship dramas come up, and if they did, it was usually because Charles brought up the topic. 

Clearly it was time for him to do exactly that.  

“Well,” he said, and stopped. “Let me just give you a brief overview. I broke up with Erik. Erik went to Bali. I have two weeks left to clean out my things from the flat and preferably find a new one. Until today I slept in our bed but I had two glasses of wine and the sight of the bedroom literally made me cry. – No, not actually literally,” he added when he saw the alarmed look on Hank’s face. “I’m joking. Not about the breakup though. Can I sleep on your couch?”

“You broke up with Erik” Hank repeated, very slowly, as though to make sure he had heard right.

“Yes.”

Hank brightened up immediately. “Oh thank god.”

 *****  
Thing No. 4 no one tells you about breakups** : 

You will finally find out what your friends thought about your relationship. How? 

If they call your ex a douchebag and then proceed to have coffee with him three times a month while ignoring your offers to meet, it’s safe to say they like him better and always have. 

If they call your ex a douchebag and offer to publish embarrassing photos of him anonymously, you know that they have taken your side. (Of course there are sides. There are always sides.)

If they attempt to high-five you or say – just theoretically – ‘thank god’, it is almost certain that they have always hated your partner’s guts.

***

Charles knew that most of his friends didn’t approve of Erik. It wasn’t Erik’s fault, not really. Some people just didn’t click. In two and a half years, the only person among his friends and acquaintances who actually liked his boyfriend was Raven, which had always disturbed him a bit.   
Of course, Erik could have tried a bit harder making himself likeable (read: not behave like a complete dick). He still remembered when he had first introduced his boyfriend to Hank.

 

***  
  


_“Erik, meet Hank, my colleague and friend. Hank, meet…Erik.” Erik frowns at Charles and ignores Hank’s outstretched hand.  
_

_“What, I don’t get a description?,” he asks. Charles rolls his eyes.  
_

_“_ _Hank, meet the bane of my existence. Are you happy?” His boyfriend smiles, but only barely. To strangers, it might look like a threat, and that is exactly how Hank interprets it, judging by the hand he has suddenly let drop to his side and the half-step he has taken back._

_“Pleasure” he says weakly._

_“The pleasure is all mine,” Erik says, and the sad thing is that he probably really does think he’s being amenable._

_The silence stretches. Finally, Charles coughs._

_“Ahem. Right. I’ll go get dinner ready, so you guys can get to know each other.” He leaves them in the living room, torn if it’s a brilliant or a terrible idea to leave them alone. Terrible, it seems, when Erik appears by his side barely three minutes later. Charles redirects his attention from the stove to his boyfriend._

_“Where’s Hank – did I just hear the front door?”_

_“Hank decided he wasn’t hungry anymore, and I thought I smelt something burning.”_

_“Christ, what did you say to him?”_

_“Nothing,” Erik says, too quickly. Charles raises his eyebrow almost without thinking. “It’s not my fault if he can’t take a joke.”_

_They’ve been together for three months, and truth be told, this is exactly why he hesitated introducing his boyfriend to anyone. Erik and Charles have a very similar sense of humour. The difference mostly lies in the way they deliver jokes, in other words: People can mostly tell when Charles is joking. With Erik, people mostly think he’s the world’s biggest asshole._

_“Fine, I’ll go after Hank, you try to fix the meal. I think I burned it a bit-“  
“A _ bit _– move out of the way, this just caught on fire.”_

_“What are – oh. Yes. This is definitely a fire. In my kitchen.”_

_He has never had a panic attack before in his life, but is pretty sure that this is the beginning of one. Erik takes one look at him, seemingly deciding that Charles and his rapidly increasing breathing are not going to be of any help, and forcibly guides him out of the room._

_He looks for and finds the fire extinguisher, and thirty seconds later everything is fine, the fire is out, dinner is ruined, and Charles is still shaking with the knowledge that he could have been_ burned to death _, shut up Erik, this is a_ fact _. Only the next morning does he remember to call Hank and apologise, and by that time, his friend has already formed his opinion of Erik and their relationship._

 

***

 

Over two years later, Hank agreed to let Charles stay as long as he wanted, with the understanding being that Charles wouldn’t stay for more than two nights tops. They drank tea and chatted about everything but the elephant in the room, until at quarter to midnight, when Charles’ phone chimed thrice in rapid succession.

Three texts, all from Raven.

 

__**Raven**  
Received 11:46 pm   
Cain called  
  
**Raven**  
Received 11:46 pm  
_Wants ur number_

__**Raven**  
Received 11:47 pm  
_??_

 

Well, shit.

***

 **Thing No. 5 no one tells you about breakups** :

They tend to attract even more bad luck, because misery loves company.

***

“Charles? Is everything alright?” Hank asked. Charles nodded absently.

“Fine. Actually, I might just go to bed if it’s all the same to you. I’ll see in the morning.”

He got settled for sleep, but didn’t close his eyes for hours. In the end, he deleted the messages, and only then could he rest.

 

***  
  


Charles’ relationship with Cain Marko was like this: Pain and fear, bitterness and anger.   
And it was like this: Complete radio silence for 12 consecutive years.

And it was like this:

Imagine two boys. Let’s name them Charles and Cain.

When Charles is five, his father dies. When Charles is six, his mother starts drinking. When Charles is seven, his mother remarries. Her new husband is Cain’s father.

Cain’s father – let’s name him Kurt – is not a nice man, not to Cain, and not to Charles. There is a two-year-age gap between the boys, yet Charles is clearly smarter, having already skipped one year of school and about to skip a second one. Kurt, a scientist and despite his violent nature an intelligent man himself, is impressed. He is not impressed with his own son.

Cain’s bruises increase in number. Charles’ bruises don’t.

The two boys by now are 10 and 12.

Now let’s add a bit to our story. Let’s say one of the boys is…a telepath.

Let’s say it’s Charles.

Charles is still young. His powers are starting to develop rapidly now, and his own lack of control scares him. He cannot share this with anyone.

He feels like the loneliest person in the world.

Two more years pass. Cain, now in puberty, has taken to hit Charles as much as Kurt hits him. The sick irony of this is that Kurt notices, and punishes his son by hitting him. This leads to Cain punishing Charles, by hitting him. It’s a cycle, and none of them can break free.

Charles is still lonely.

Charles then meets Raven.

Raven is 10. She is a shapeshifter. She is Charles’ first friend.

She is going to leave.

What does Charles do?

What would  _you_  do?

Charles, with his ever-increasing psychic abilities, breaks a boundary he doesn’t know exists. He goes into his mother’s mind, and adds a few new memories. He goes into Kurt’s mind, and does the same.

He tries to do this with Cain, but he gets too wrapped up in his fear of his stepbrother. He doesn’t quite manage.

Raven becomes part of the family, and stays. Kurt and Sharon Marko are indifferent. Charles is happy. Cain is suspicious.

Sharon Marko dies, but it doesn’t really matter. She has never been much of a mother to begin with.

Fast forward four years. A little further. Ah, there it is.

Cain leaves for the army, age 18. Charles leaves for Harvard, age 16. Raven stays in Westchester, age 14.

Now go back a bit, just a few weeks.

Raven and Charles fight. It is their biggest fight yet. Cain leaving means Raven doesn’t need Charles to shield her anymore. What about Kurt?

Charles goes back into his stepfather’s mind, twists a few more things. Makes sure he would never hurt Raven.

It’s something he could have done years ago, Raven accuses.

Charles says nothing.

They don’t speak for five years, when they go to Kurt Marko’s funeral together.

Cain does not visit the funeral, but he comes to the reading of the will.

Charles, who had made his peace with not inheriting what should have been his to begin with, is proven wrong.

He inherits everything.

Cain inherits nothing.

(Neither does Raven.)

Cain is furious. A fight breaks out. He demands a share of the money.

Charles remembers all the abuse, and stands his ground. He says No.

He receives a black eye and couldn’t care less. He leaves.

He doesn’t speak to Cain Marko for 12 years.

Then Raven sends him three texts.

And just like that, everything comes back.   
  


***   
  


Funny thing was, Charles had spent over a decade telling himself he wasn’t afraid, so when his phone rang the next afternoon during his lunch break and the caller ID was listed as unknown, he didn’t freeze up or panicked. He was a fucking adult, not a 12-year-old kid anymore. He could, and would, do this.

He answered.

“This is Charles Xavier, whom am I speaking to?”

A painfully familiar voice answered.

“It’s me.”

It was not Cain.   
It was Erik.

He thought he might have preferred Cain. For a second, Charles seriously considered hanging up.

“Hello,” he said instead.

Silence, except for Erik’s calm breathing down the line. Charles couldn’t take this.

Apropos of nothing he said: “Remember the jumper your mother gave you for Christmas? I know you secretly hated it, so this would be the perfect opportunity to get rid of it. Next time she visits and asks about it, just say I took it. She won’t suspect a thing.”

Erik huffed a laugh.

“It’s fine, leave it. Unless – did you want it?”   
Charles did. It was the perfect sweater, slightly too big for him and incredibly soft and comfy. He loved it, and hadn’t minded at all that Erik would rather be dead than seen wearing it.   
“No,” he lied. “Just thought I’d offer.”

“Right.”

A minute passed in which neither of the two men said anything. Something in Charles’ chest ached at the knowledge that if he just said something, he could strike up a conversation. If he said the right thing, he might even begin to fix this.

He could never do that to Erik.

“Did you want something?” he asked eventually.

“No.”

“Alright. Well, my next class starts soon, I should-“

“Are you okay?”

The question startled him enough to forget what he had been going to say. _Was he okay?_  
No.   
This was something he couldn’t admit to either.

“I’m great” he said, and added after a brief hesitation: “-Are you?”

“No,” Erik said. As soon as he said it, Charles felt guilt so thick he thought it might choke him. Of course.   
Erik always had been the more honest one in their relationship.

Erik had to have heard something, perhaps his breath hitching, because he added in a somewhat lighter tone: “My boyfriend just broke up with me, you know.”

“I heard” Charles said. “I’m very sorry.”

“Me too.”

He had to end this call before he said something he would regret later.

“I have to go. Have fun on Bali.”

“Thanks” Erik replied. “Charles?”

“Yes?” Charles said, finger already hovering over the  _End Call_  – button.

“Keep the sweater.”

 

*******  
  


**Thing No. 6 no one tells you about breakups** :

It gets worse before it gets better.

 

***

Soon, Charles found out why Cain hadn’t called, hadn’t bothered Raven any more about getting his phone number.

It was because three days after Charles’ conversation with Erik, he was in their flat packing up the last of his things, when the doorbell rang. 

Of course Charles knew it was Cain. He was a telepath, and his stepbrother’s mind would always feel familiar. 

He hadn’t felt the sensation of Cain’s thoughts, even the surface ones, and the general feel of his emotions, in years. For once, Charles was tempted to take a psionic blocker, just to rid himself of the sick feeling that overcame him.

Years ago, when he had still been a spokesman for the mutant community, he had held many a lecture about the importance of these blockers. Regardless of what Erik thought, they helped young mutants establish their control over their powers better. What Charles would have given to have this as a kid, as a teenager.

Nowadays, he was confident enough in his ability to leave this kind of medication alone. Besides, Erik had always been against it.

None of that was the reason why Charles left the pills he always kept – just in case – in the bathroom untouched. He couldn’t give a shit about Erik’s opinion on what a mutant should and shouldn’t do.   
But if he needed a psionic blocker to stand up to Cain, Cain would win.

He opened the door, and faced his stepbrother for the first time in 12 years.

Cain hadn’t changed much. This was what surprised Charles most of all, that except for some lines around the eyes and a broader body, Cain looked just like had at 23, still like he was planning on winning Mr Universe.

Then again, Charles supposed he hadn’t changed much either.

“Charlie,” Cain greeted him, hazel eyes cool as he looked down at Charles.

“Cain,” Charles said warily. He fought the urge to dive into small talk, to ask how Cain had been these past few years or if he had watched last night’s game. Polite chitchat about nonsense was something Charles had always been good at.

Erik had always been equally amused and annoyed by that side of him.

“Are you gonna let me in?”

In lieu of an answer, Charles stepped neatly aside and allowed the other man inside the flat, closing the door behind him.

Cain didn’t waste time. His bluntness was one of his few agreeable qualities.

“I need money.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

“I need to borrow some of yours.”

“You can’t.”

Cain took a step closer to Charles, who refused to flinch or step back.

“All these years and I never asked a damn thing. You know some of that money should have been mine, but I never asked.” Technically true, if you didn’t count that scene after the opening of the will. Then again, Cain hadn’t asked then, either, just taken his fists to him. “I’m asking now.”

“I said no.”

All his childhood, he had wanted to stand up to Cain, but he had been too weak. He wasn’t weak anymore. So what if some of Kurt Marko’s inheritance had gone to his biological son? Perhaps if said son had ever showed an ounce of kindness to Charles, he wouldn’t be in this position now.

Was that unjust? Probably. But then, Charles had never claimed to be a nice person.

He straightened up and for once, had no trouble meeting his stepbrother’s eyes.

“Say please.”

“What?”

“Beg me for the money. I want to hear you say it. Beg, and I’ll help you out.”

“Please” Cain said immediately. “Please, let me borrow the money.”

“Now apologise for what you’ve done to me.” It was pettiness, nothing more.   
“I’m sorry. Please.”

Part of Charles knew that his stepbrother had to be desperate to give in so quickly, but he didn’t care. At the age of 33, he finally, finally didn’t give one shit about Cain Marko any longer.

“Fuck off,” he said, suddenly exhausted.

“You said- “

“I lied. Now get out.”

“Charlie” Cain said, half-angry, half-frantic.

“Don’t ever call me that again” Charles snapped, and watched as his stepbrother took his leave. When he was alone again, he poured himself a glass of wine with shaking hands. Somehow, this conversation hadn’t given him as much satisfaction as he had expected it to.

Right now, he didn’t feel much of anything, and he wondered if the hollow ache in his heart would disappear any time soon.  

 

***

 

They had split up in the middle of February. On March 1st, Charles moved into a new flat. Erik was still on his holiday, still posting updates that found their origin clearly in Emma, and life went on.

Two weeks were not enough to stop Charles from missing Erik.

He wasn’t sure if he’d ever stop.

He wore that jumper a lot now.

His old flat, the one he’d lived in before moving in with Erik, had been close to university and right between a bubble tea shop and a bookshop, which combined a thing Charles loathed and a thing Charles loved. It had been sort of nice, and it had been his. He missed that flat, had always missed it, even though Erik’s flat was bigger and nicer.

His new place was nothing special, not that it needed to be. It survived its purpose simply by providing a roof over his head.   
Some people got a new haircut after getting out of a relationship. Erik had left for Bali, and Charles had thought the idea rather brilliant.

He had had a look around, scoured the internet and annoyed his colleagues, until finally, he found what he wanted.

He had no intention of taking a holiday, but New York City held no particular appeal to him either right now, and well – he had always wanted to return to England. Why not do it as a professor?

Once, Erik had asked about his accent, seeing as Charles was born and had grown up in America. The answer was quite simple: For one, his mother had been from England, and she had made sure that all the staff was, too. Charles’ Oxford years had only given it the final polish.

In moments like that, Charles was struck by how ridiculous his upbringing had been, how his parents and even his stepfather later on had all pretended to be, what, part of the royal family? Some kind of exiled monarchy? What a ludicrous notion, how very preposterous.

Still, he had always liked Oxford. He could see himself going back there, and so he had already set things in motion.

In other words, his flat only had to last three months, so it didn’t matter that it was a dump.

Moira had suggested he was being needlessly dramatic. Charles had suggested she kindly go to hell, and hung up on her.

It hadn’t been a proud moment, and immediately afterwards he had called her back and apologised. It wasn’t Moira’s fault that he was in a bad mood and besides, she was right. It was dramatic. But Erik wasn’t here to judge him, so who cared?

After the move, there wasn’t much left to occupy his mind with, and he was quickly running out of work as well as friends who were willing to have a drink with him during the week. So Charles did the next-best thing.

He went out for drinks with Tony Stark.   
It had only been a matter of time before Charles would have called his oldest friend.

There had not been a single disaster in Charles’ life in which Tony had not gotten involved in at some point – most of them, Tony had been at the very centre of.

They knew each other from various social functions when they were kids, and had met again when Charles started college. Later, Tony had gone to MIT and Charles to Oxford, but a year had been enough to rekindle their friendship. Nowadays, well. 

Nowadays, they met up about once a year or so to get roaringly drunk and complain about everything that was wrong with their lives. It had, in fact, become a tradition of sorts, and this year, Charles figured he needed all the alcohol in the world.

Luckily, Tony could provide that.

“I love Tequila” Charles declared, sitting cross-legged on the sofa in his brand-new living room. A small crash sounded. The robot Tony had brought as a house-warming gift had just walked into a wall.

Charles pointed an accusing finger at Tony. “Was that supposed to happen? Because it looks like that wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“Where’s thy faith, heathen? Though shalt not criticise thy God” Tony said, neatly sidestepping the question. He had slid to the floor some undeterminable time ago.

“Should’ve just brought me some booze.”

“I did” Tony said. “I brought Tequila.”

“Did you? Oh wait. You did.” Charles started giggling. “Christ, I’m pissed.”

“Totally wasted” Tony agreed and knocked another shot back, presumably in an effort to keep up.

“God knows I need it. Did I, did I ever tell you how I met Erik?”

“A hundred times.”

“We were at a Supermarket” Charles said loudly, causing Tony to flinch. “He asked me to suck him off.”

“I  _know_. How bad do you think my memory is?”

“And I said no but see, part of me wanted to, you know? I’ve always won…wonder…asked myself, what’d have happened if I had said yes that night.”

“Great sex” Tony suggested, looking like he was both delighted and mildly disgusted by this sudden change of topic. It would have occurred to Charles then, had he not been so drunk, that he and Tony were not completely unlike each other when it came to differentiating between feelings and sex.

“No, I meant, if I had said yes to Erik about the, the marriage thingy.”

“Great sex” Tony repeated dryly. “For the next thirty years. And then another twenty of not being able to get it up.”

“The things people do for a shag” Charles mused. He started to say something else, but was interrupted by his phone ringing. 

He decided not to answer it. Let whoever called him in the middle of the night leave a voicemail. But then, unexpectedly and driven by the universe’s need for a working storyline, Tony answered instead.

“There is a special place in hell for people who ring at 3 am” he told whoever was on the line. A pause, then: “Charles, it’s the douchebag calling.” Charles immediately sat up straighter, and promptly fell off the couch. “Listen, cupcake” Tony said into the phone, “he’s not available right now, too busy being concussed – Jesus, I’m joking – Charles? Shit.” 

Charles could hear the distinct ping that signalled the end of the call, but at the moment it was hard to concentrate on anything at all. Had he hit his head on something? He must have. Everything felt fuzzy. 

Hands, on his face. He blinked. 

“-only joking, Xavier! Fuck. Stay awake.” Charles understood the words, but he had never been very good at following orders. He drifted off.

 

***  
  
Charles woke up and noticed three things. One, his head hurt. Two, he was in a hospital bed. Three, Erik was not by his side.

***

**Thing No. 7 no one tells you about breakups**

Sometimes, things work out just the way you want them to. But mostly they don’t.

***

He couldn’t help but feel vaguely disappointed. Wasn’t it supposed to be Erik’s job as the love interest to return to New York as fast as he could, leaving everything behind just to wait for Charles to wait up? Erik should have been sitting next to the bed, snarling at everyone who dared to disturb them.

Reality was a bit more sobering, in that not only Erik wasn’t here, neither was anyone else. He was on his own.

This was not new. As a naturally clumsy person, Charles had been to the hospital more often than he could count. Broken bones, third-degree-burns, cracked ribs and once an allergic reaction against bloody nuts of all things– been there, done that. A concussion was nothing special. 

A concussion from hitting his head on a flowerpot on the other hand? That wasn’t only new, but also embarrassing as hell. There hadn’t even been a plant in it. It had literally just been an empty pot.   
All of this he learned from the text Tony had sent him, explaining why Charles was alone, something about a plane to China he had to catch, as if he didn’t own a private jet.

Still, Charles supposed it didn’t really matter. One result of getting hurt a lot was that at some point, people ceased to make a big deal out of it. God knew Charles had.   
Tony’s messages ended with one last joke about the most ridiculous injury of all time, but Charles didn’t stop there.

(If only thinking didn’t hurt so much right now. A concussion meant his mind felt too fuzzy to shut off the pain receptors. Was this how normal people felt  _all the time_? How depressing a thought.)

After Tony left, the hospital then would have gone through the emergency contact listed in Charles’ file. That list contained two names: Raven Darkholme and Hank McCoy, neither of which had apparently been available.

Raven was on the list more out of courtesy than anything else. If Charles were suffering from a serious medical condition, his sister was quite possibly the very last person he would want to make any kind of decision on the matter.

That’s why Hank was on the list, too. Naturally sensible, Charles’ friend would offer an at least somewhat educated opinion on things, and Charles trusted him to be the voice of reason in a crisis.

Then there was Erik.

Charles had never once considered putting Erik on that list. His boyfriend had driven him to the hospital a (worryingly large) number of times, and sometimes he’d even been there when Charles was released, but rarely had Erik set foot inside the building. This was because he had a deep-ingrained fear of hospitals that he kept denying. It didn’t matter.

If he was completely honest with himself, Charles wouldn’t have put down Erik as his emergency contact regardless. It had just always seemed like one of those boundaries every relationship was bound to have.

Besides, in retrospect this appeared to have been the right call, seeing as it was no longer any of Erik’s business whether Charles would be home in time for dinner.

It would have been kind of nice to have that tearful hospital reunion regardless, but you couldn’t have anything.

A doctor came in then. Dr. Logan Howlett had seen to most of Charles’ varying injuries over the years, and seemed constantly on the verge of calling the cops.

“Concussion” he said immediately, as if Charles hadn’t known that already. Said concussion was the whole reason why he was still in pain. It was a little hard to forget. “Your friend called an ambulance, told us what happened, then left. Some friend you have.”

“He texted me to say he was sorry” Charles said defensively, and realised that it had been the wrong answer when Howlett’s face darkened further.

“Turn your phone off, for God’s sake. You’re in a fucking hospital. What’s wrong with you?”

“Sorry” said Charles, only half-sincerely. “When can I go?”

“Well, we tried contacting Ms Darkholme and Mr McCoy, got no reply. Lucky for you, I was on call for the night. I practically know your social security number by heart, seeing as you’re here so often.”

Charles laughed, then winced.

“As far as I’m concerned, you’re free to leave so long as you have someone to watch you for a bit. Do you?”

“Yes” Charles lied.

Howlett nodded. “Still don’t want those abusive relationships pamphlets, I take it?”

“I hit my head on a flowerpot” Charles said calmly, wishing the floor would open up and swallow him.

The doctor shook his head.

“As far as bullshit excuses go, that was the worst one so far. Now get out of my hospital.”

Charles complied only too happily. He took a cab home and chatted a bit with the driver, but mostly he just looked out of the window, trying not to think about how he was coming home to an empty flat.

When he got out of the elevator, his head already much clearer than it had been an hour ago, Erik was waiting for him.

 

***  
  


From the looks of it, he had been sitting on the carpeted floor leading up to Charles’ apartment for quite some time. When Charles approached, he rose.

It took Charles a moment to find his voice, and when he did, for once there was no sarcasm in his words. There wasn’t anything, just this sudden need to just say Erik’s name, over and over again.

“Erik.”

Erik had a tan, but apart from that hadn’t changed at all. Of course he hadn’t, Charles thought. It had only been three weeks. It felt like much longer though.

“Charles” Erik said. Charles hesitated, then walked past Erik and unlocked the door, letting himself in and leaving it open behind him.

“Might as well come in” he said.

Inside, Erik didn’t take off his coat. The message was obvious: He wasn’t intending to stay. His next words made that ever so much clearer.

“I’m not going to do some big dramatic gesture so you’ll take me back.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to.”

“But I – I just wanted you to know that I thought about things. About what you said to me.”

 

_“True love, that's bullshit. So if you marry me, you marry a guy who can't agree to 'forever' with good conscience” Charles said._

_And because he was a telepath, and you are never quite able to suppress that, he opened his mind then and let Erik's emotions wash over him. What he expected was pain. What he got was anger, and frustration._

_“You're unbelievable” Erik snapped. “This? It doesn't make you special. There's always a risk, and not just for you. Maybe I'll wake up one day and realise that I'm not in love with you anymore. Have you ever thought about that? But that's what marriage is. It's always two people jumping off a cliff hoping that they'll survive the fall.”_

Charles had thought about it too; he had, in fact, thought about hardly anything else.

He would have bet everything he owned on Erik’s next words. And he didn’t care to hear them.

“Cain visited” he said instead, stopping Erik in his tracks.   
Erik’s eyes narrowed immediately. Somewhere, a metal cupboard rattled dangerously. He knew about Cain and Kurt Marko, had known for a year  
“Did you punch him in the face?”  
Charles laughed. “I did not.”

Erik visibly faltered before asking seriously: “Did  _he_  punch  _you_  in the face?”   
“No. Christ. I’m all grown up now, you know. I wouldn’t have let him.”

“Good.”

Erik didn’t ask what Cain had wanted, even though it was obvious that he had wanted something. He also didn’t ask whether Charles had given it to him. Charles didn’t volunteer the information, assuming Erik had reached his own conclusion.

“Twitter?” he asked next. Now it was Erik’s turn to laugh, though it came out slightly strangled.

“Emma.”

“I figured.”

“She also wrote a new blogpost. I believe it is called A Manual for Breakups.”

“Of course it is. I’ll be expecting concerned looks and invasive questions from all my students soon.” Emma’s blog was an open secret on campus, as her aliases for Charles and Erik were Carlos and Rick and she had changed little else about their descriptions. It had made for several awkward conversations with students and colleagues alike so far. 

Another silence. Charles had never been good with silences.

“I’m sorry” he said. “I know I said it before, but I wanted to say it again. The breakup – it wasn’t about you, Erik.”

“It’s not you, it’s me?” Erik deadpanned.

“-Yes.” At some point in the past few years, Charles had turned into a cliché.

“What’s next? We can still be friends?”

Part of Charles had wanted to suggest precisely that. What came out of his mouth was: “You’re the ninth person I’ve broken up with.”

“Somehow, that’s not making me feel special.”

“Oh, come off it, Erik. What did you expect, to be my first and only lover?”  _Your husband_ , was what hung between them unsaid. Charles took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. “I’ve broken up with nine people. You’re the only one I missed.”

And that was the truth, he realised. He had lied to himself a lot these past few weeks. Perhaps even these last few years. This, however, was finally nothing but true.

Erik was starting to look a little less like life had punched him in the nuts repeatedly, and a bit more hopeful. Somehow, it made Charles feel worse than anything so far.

“I don’t want to lead you on. But. I’m selfish enough to want you in my life anyway.”

“Are you asking me if I’ll take you back?”

Charles was a telepath, and never able to shut people’s thoughts out entirely. He knew the answer to the question as of yet unspoken. But he also knew that it had to be said regardless.

“Yes.”

Erik didn’t smile, but it was like all tension had suddenly drained out of his body. It wasn’t the Yes he had originally wanted, but it would do. “Good.”

Had Erik been a lesser man – had he been more like Charles –, it wouldn’t have been this simple. He might have made Charles say more, or apologise louder, or beg. It was what Charles might have done. It was what Charles  _had_  done.

Erik just stepped forward and pulled Charles into a hug.

Not everything was fixed. There was the question of the flat, of Charles’ new job offer, of virtually everything else.

But as of right now, this was enough.

***

**Thing No. 8 no one tells you about breakups**

Mostly, things don’t work out the way you want them to. But sometimes they do.

***

**~~Edit, March 6 th 2018: Thing No. 9 no one tells you about breakups~~ **

~~What breakup?~~

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading. Tell me if you liked it in the comments !


End file.
